Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Protest against the Mangalore event

We don’t need no “Moral policing” We don’t need no “Mind control” The protest started around 4 45 in the evening on Tuesday. Even though the turn out consisted of about thirty people (inclusive of men and women), the combined efforts of slogans and banners, made this an impact-full evening! On the mahatma Gandhi signal as many protested “violence against women” and demanded for “freedom of choice”, we asked the people in cars and autos who stopped at the signal what their stand was on the Mangalore attacks. If they agreed that what happened was wrong we’d give them a pink post-it which was stuck somewhere on the wind shield of the vehicle so that people could see that they supported the cause. Pink post-its soon became a symbol of violence against women for the evening. Most number of vehicles supported the cause, even though certain anti elements condemned the same stand: “Good! It served them right! They shouldn’t have been there.” –said a woman to Mana just before rolling her window up. “We don’t face this problem, our sisters and daughters never go out to pubs; even they shouldn’t have gone, I don’t now about right and wrong but I don’t see any reason why I should support those “kind” of women who go to pubs and get drunk.” Similarly an auto man explained to Urmila. “The intention of the men who beat the girls wasn’t wrong, their intention was right; maybe their approach was wrong.” Another auto man said to Pushpi being unsure of the stand he wanted to take. Other than the few negative remarks most people were more than happy to have this sign of support on their cars or autos and also many encouraged this cause more than willingly.By Huda